THE RED SHOES: Educator’s Guide is now available! One of our best reviewed graphic novels of last year was Metaphrog’s wonderful THE RED SHOES AND OTHER TALES. We’ve heard from numerous teachers and other educators who want to use the book in their classrooms. That’s why we’re so happy to announce that we’ve just posted a new educator’s guide to the book on our Resources page. If you’re interested in incorporating the book in to your lesson plan or even assigning it to individual students, this new booklet will be a great resource. Download your copy today!

Are you a teacher or librarian looking for resources to help you use graphic novels in your school? Are you a parent who’s looking to find new and exciting ways to get your kids to learn? Are you a kid who wishes he could read comics in the classroom? Are you a fan of seeing terrible things happen to School Principals?

If you answered yes to any of the above then our latest educator’s guide is for you! THE LUNCH WITCH TEACHER’S GUIDE is chock full of helpful information and suggestions for anyone looking to use the book in an educational environment. This handy booklet contains suggestions for reading activities, after-reading discussion, Common Core tie-ins and more. In short, everything you need to create a fun and engaging reading experience for your students.

Starting this afternoon, we’ll be in Columbus, OH attending AASL- The American Association of School Librarians National Conference and Exhibition! We can’t wait to interact with all the librarians! We will have some of our newest books for sale including SCARLETT, THE RED SHOES AND OTHER TALES, BREADWINNERS and SANJAY AND CRAIG.

We will also have plenty of freebies too! We imagine you might need a bookmark or two for all the reading you will be doing following the conference, we have your free SCARLETT and RED SHOES bookmarks! Or, relive the days of Sunday Funnies with our DENNIS THE MENACE newsprint!

We will be giving away 100 copies of our new Advance Review Copies of THE ONLY LIVING BOY! First come, first serve. THE ONLY LIVING BOY will be available everywhere in March. We will also have copies of our Super Genius New York Comic-Con exclusive MR. HERO comicbook! Pick up your copy at our booth: #110!

Also, if you have an official AASL coupon book- take a look for our Papercutz coupon! Be one of the first 25 to visit our booth and present the coupon, and you will win a set of all three of our 10th anniversary prints! Again, first come, first serve! So, take a look at your map and make a beeline to our booth!

For more information about the conference, visit the official website.

Editor’s Note: Papercutz recently sponsored a special edition of SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL’s “Extra Helping” newsletter focused on “using Comics to teach”. For the next few days, we’ll be running excerpts from that issue on our blog and linking back to the original articles. If you’re an educator who is already using graphic novels in your classroom or you’re contemplating taking the plunge, these articles should prove invaluable.

By Dawn K. Wing

I discovered the power of graphic novels as a language-learning tool while teaching English in Japan in 2006. As a non-Japanese speaker, I was encouraged by my colleagues to learn more vocabulary by reading manga or comics, specifically the classic comic strip Sazae-san(Kodansha International, 1997). Since then, I have become an avid reader and teacher of graphic novels. In Japan, manga is everywhere. It was not unusual to see students reading it in the classroom, between classes, or in the cafeteria. If you’re a high school teacher in the United States today, the sight of graphic novels in the hands of a teen reader is not uncommon.

From 2008–2011, I taught English as a Second Language (ESL) at Pan American International High School in Queens, NY. I was excited to share the love and passion I’d acquired for graphic novels with my students. Fortunately, I had colleagues and literacy coaches who were already experienced in creating curricula around teaching graphic novels like Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis (Pantheon, 2004) and Gene Luen Yang’s American Born Chinese (First Second, 2006) that supported English language learners’ (ELL) development in multiple literacies. Studies have also shown increased engagement and vocabulary development in ELLs when reading graphic novels and producing visual narratives.

During my tenure as a high school ESL teacher, I developed curricula that enabled students to practice their English language skills across all modalities by reading and creating visual narratives. Teaching graphic novels with ELLs requires specific planning and scaffolding of activities. Here are some of my best practices for using graphic novels in the ESL classroom.

TEACHING ART SPIEGELMAN’S MAUS

When planning to teach reading comprehension and literary analysis to ELLs using graphic novels, it is best to assess students’ prior experiences with visual narratives and subject interests. From survey results gathered at the beginning of the fall 2009 semester, I realized most of my 11th grade intermediate and advanced ESL students wanted to learn more about world history. From my research, using online educator resources such as theInternational Literacy Association’s Read Write Think website, I decided to teach Art Spiegelman’s Maus (Pantheon, 1991), the Pulitzer prize−winning graphic novel about the journey of his father, who survived the Holocaust.

Although a number of students were familiar with reading manga, others needed to learn the basic visual grammar of graphic novels. This meant providing explicit instruction of graphic novel terminology such as panels, dialogue, captions, and speech bubbles. Because I had a mixed-level class, I chose excerpts from Maus for students to read aloud during class, combining excerpts that focused primarily on the main character’s experience living in concentration camps.

To help students understand the historical context of the story, I did in-class activities about Polish ghetto life. Students matched captions I’d written to select photographs of Mendel Grossman, whose work was published in the book My Secret Camera (HMH books, 2000). I also facilitated activities using PowerPoint presentations, explaining the causes and outcomes of World War II, and focusing on the rise and fall of Nazi powers in Europe.

During class, students enjoyed reading aloud select pages from Maus while writing their thoughts and responses to questions in reading guides that I’d created. They were prompted to review what happened in a scene, foreshadow what might happen later, and analyze the symbolism Spiegelman uses in the story. Students were asked why they thought the author chose to represent Jews as mice and Germans as cats, and how this device was effective to convey key concepts of the story.

After collectively analyzing Maus, students were asked to write a comparative literary essay using this story and another work of literature. I created a packet that scaffolded the essay writing process that would help prepare students for the required New York State English Language Arts Regents exam. Overall, the students were engaged throughout our selected chapter readings and discussions ofMaus. A few extended their interest in learning about the Holocaust by opting to go on a field trip to the Brooklyn Academy of Music to watch a puppetry production about Auschwitz later that semester.

Editor’s Note: Papercutz recently sponsored a special edition of SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL’s “Extra Helping” newsletter focused on “using Comics to teach”. For the next few days, we’ll be running excerpts from that issue on our blog and linking back to the original articles. If you’re an educator who is already using graphic novels in your classroom or you’re contemplating taking the plunge, these articles should prove invaluable.

The Comic Book Teacher High school English teacher Ronell Whitaker reviews graphic novels and discusses how he uses them in the classroom.

Comics in EducationGene Luen Yang, the author of a number of acclaimed graphic novels includingAmerican Born Chinese and Boxers & Saints, is also a high school teacher. This website is the online version of his Masters degree in education project and includes information on the history of comics in education and the use of comics in education as well as other resources.

Diamond Bookshelf This monthly newsletter from Diamond Book Distributors, which specializes in graphic novels, features information about graphic novels for children and teens, as well as graphic novel lesson plans.

Teaching Graphic Novels: Practical Strategies for the Secondary ELA Classroom by Katie Monnin (Maupin House, 2010). The author is an assistant professor of literacy at the University of North Florida.

Graphic Novels and Comic Books edited by Kat Kan (Reference Shelf, 2010). A collection of essays on using graphic novels in libraries and classrooms, including writings on graphic novels as literature and interviews with Marjane Satrapi, Gene Luen Yang, and other creators.

The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic Book Scare and How It Changed America by David Hajdu (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2008). A very readable account of the anti-comics movement of the 1940s and 1950s and the effect it had on the industry in subsequent decades.

Going Graphic: Comics at Work in the Multilingual Classroom by Stephen Cary (Heinemann, 2004).

The Power of Reading: Insights From the Research (Second Edition), by Stephen D. Krashen (Heinemann/Libraries Unlimited, 2004). Krashen devotes a chapter to comics as light reading.

Editor’s Note: Papercutz recently sponsored a special edition of SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL’s “Extra Helping” newsletter focused on “using Comics to teach”. For the next few days, we’ll be running excerpts from that issue on our blog and linking back to the original articles. If you’re an educator who is already using graphic novels in your classroom or you’re contemplating taking the plunge, these articles should prove invaluable.

On March 14, 2013, teachers in the Chicago Public Schools were told, without explanation, to remove all copies of Marjane Satrapi’s graphic novel Persepolis (Pantheon, 2003) from their classrooms.

A day later, facing protests from students and anti-censorship organizations, Chicago Public Schools CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett explained the move. The “powerful images of torture” on a single page of the book made it unsuitable for seventh graders and required the district to give teachers in grades eight through 10 special professional development classes before they could teach it. The book was pulled from classrooms for those grades, but remained in school libraries.

This is the paradox of graphic novels: The visual element that gives them their power can also make them vulnerable to challenges. Researcher Steven Cary calls this the “naked buns” effect. “It’s the rare student or parent who objects to the words ‘naked buns,’” he writes in Going Graphic: Comics at Work in the Multilingual Classroom (Heinemann, 2004). “But an image of naked buns can set off fireworks.”

At the same time, graphic novels are increasingly used in the classroom. For over a decade, public librarians have been promoting graphic novels as literature, and researchers have studied their benefits in educational settings.